The First Kiss Reaction
by WeBuiltThePyramids
Summary: She gave him advice on how to deal with Priya.  She kissed him.  Then she vomited off and on for the next forty minutes.  He listened. He may have kissed back. Then he spent forty minutes thinking.  A lot.


**So when Krys asked me to write something about this episode last night, I told her that I was already working on it! I knew as soon as it aired that I'd need to fic it. For sure! So here's what I've got. It's up later than usual because I needed to rewatch the episode before I trusted myself with the topic.**

**This is definitely Shamy, and kind of shippy, but it's not really "romantic." Maybe Sheldon is unsure of why he reacts to/does certain things, but it's all ambiguous enough that you can all make your own interpretation.**

**DISCLAIMER: I own absolutely nothing.**

Sheldon was in a staring contest with the stupid monkey. It pulled the cigarette from its mouth and blew into Sheldon's face. He waved his hand to clear the air he was ingesting.

The apartment smelled terrible. It smelled like monkey droppings and secondhand smoke. It made Sheldon anxious just being there, and now that Amy wasn't there, he was even more uneasy. When they were talking, keeping up a conversation, he was able to focus on something other than the smoky aroma and the fact that Amy's oven clock was two minutes fast. Even though Amy was drunk, and not the Smart Amy that he enjoyed spending his free time with mocking the ways smart people dumb down ideas for the general public, talking with her was still _something_ else to do but stare at the stupid monkey.

The sound of Amy vomiting drew Sheldon's attention away from the monkey. Facts. Timeline. What he had been oh so briefly distracted from came back into his brain, front and center, so to speak.

She'd kissed him. She'd given him all the signs that she was going to. She'd twirled her hair, stated that they were going to do something, and then crawled forward and put her lips on his. It wasn't the quick peck she'd given Penny, the kind of kiss that if one blinked, they could honestly swore they never saw it. It wasn't like those kisses Leonard and Penny or Priya gave each other either. It was in the middle. Probably only two S's, but still, there were no S's in "peck."

He shifted uncomfortably, and not because of the monkey still blowing smoke in his face. Because he just realized what he'd said immediately following.

"Fascinating."

Why did he say that?

"Oh, cut it out!" He said to the monkey, swatting the air. Ricky jumped back and shook his fist at him.

"Fascinating."

Sheldon frowned, listening to her throwing up. He remembered what she said just prior. That she hoped he wouldn't take that as a comment on what they'd just done.

_What they'd just done._

Her exact words being "what we just did."

_We_.

Not _I_.

Sheldon put a finger to his lips. Did he kiss her back? Why couldn't he remember? He remembered every other kiss clearly. His mother, Missy, Mee Maw…he supposed he _kissed_ them, but it was probably more on the peck side. This clearly wasn't…did he actually _accept_ and _return_ Amy Farrah Fowler's offer of intimacy?

He decided he hadn't. Or even if he did, it didn't really count. Sure, he closed his eyes. He remembered that, of course he did, it wasn't that long ago that it had happened. He remembered that when Leonard's mother kissed him he was stiff, arms to his sides, eyes displaying his horror. When Amy kissed him, he let her. That was it. He let her. He didn't clench his jaw shut, nor did he offer her anything more. She didn't try to use tongue, and he didn't either.

So it was a kiss. Not a peck, but certainly not a kissss. _Definitely_ not a kissss.

He moved into the hall outside Amy's bathroom. He wasn't sure what was moving his feet. He wanted to fix the oven clock. He wanted _out_ of the smoking apartment. But something inside him, either the part that was taught to be chivalrous enough to take girls dancing if they asked, or the part that helped that nun, or another part that he didn't know could influence his actions, was making him rap on the door and ask "Amy?"

"Alcohol."

He sighed. "I know. Can I come in?"

"Fi-ine." The word was choked, two syllables, as the retching began again.

Sheldon entered the bathroom and looked at his girl – friend – but – not – girlfriend on the floor, kneeling in front of the toilet. Her glasses were on the floor beside her, and she was holding her hair back as she kept her face in the toilet.

Sheldon cocked his head ever so slightly. That damn chivalry again. Women were not supposed to have to hold their own hair. "Amy," Sheldon said, walking around behind her. He hesitated as he reached out, uncomfortable with touching her. Oh, he'd been willing to hold her hand earlier, when they were dancing, but he'd been doing it because that was how one danced that dance. And that had been when they were friends.

He wasn't sure what they were now. He knew how many facial muscles were involved in kissing. He didn't know what it meant socially. Could he still say she wasn't his girlfriend? Did they have to have some talk to become a couple, where they each had to 'say' it? Or was the kiss enough? Sheldon hoped not. He liked – even loved – the relationship he had with Amy Farrah Fowler right now. Okay, maybe not _now_. But as it had been before the kiss. Before, Smart Amy was enough to make him still sit on a couch in a smoky apartment with Drunk Amy.

He decided that kissing wasn't enough. Penny and Leonard kissed before they were a couple. So Sheldon reached forward and took Amy's hair out of her hands an into his own. She threw her head back. "I'm good for now!" She declared, looking a bit too wild – eyed.

"I've lived with and in close proximity to people who are a lot more used to drinking than you are," he told her. "You're not 'good' for long."

"You know?" She said, putting a finger up as if what she was about to say was _very_ important. "I bet you Bernadette stays over at Penny's tonight. She has a hard enough time seeing over the dashboard as it is."

Sheldon thought about that before answering. "She is at a height disadvantage, however I get the feeling that you're making some sort of joke."

"Wrong!" Amy said, imitating a buzzer.

Sheldon hoped his little chuckle sounded genuine. Even if it didn't, she was too far gone to catch onto the insincerity.

Her head tipped forward again, and her shoulders jerked as she heaved more alcohol into the toilet. Sheldon remembered walking in on Penny and Leonard once, when Penny was puking and Leonard knelt behind her, holding her hair back, just like Sheldon was doing with Amy. Leonard had held the hair in one hand, and used the other to hold one of her shoulders still as he kissed her neck and shoulder in comfort.

Not on Amy Farrah Fowler's life.

Okay, maybe on her life. She was more of a contributor to society than the nun was, no matter what his mother would argue.

But she wasn't dying. She was nauseated from all the alcohol. Sheldon felt that holding her hair back was good enough.

The off and on nausea, split up by brief periods of Amy feeling fine, continued for more than a half an hour. Finally, Amy slumped over, eyes closed.

"Amy?"

Her eyes opened slightly, like slits. Then they closed again.

Sheldon wasn't sure what to do now. He wasn't strong enough to carry her to her bedroom. He wasn't even sure where her bedroom was, even though it would be easy enough to find. But finding it would be pointless.

He moved his hands from her hair – partly out of necessity and partly because he realized that he was holding her up by it and if she was awake she'd probably feel like she was being scalped – to her shoulders, and eased her onto her side on the ground. Standing straight up for the first time in nearly forty minutes, he found a towel in her bathroom closet. He frowned at the way it was folded, slightly uneven, and remedied the situation before picking up Amy's head and putting the towel underneath. He let go of her, and the neurobiologist's head dropped the inch or so onto the makeshift pillow. Sheldon stood, and then felt bad about letting her head drop. So he picked it up again, and set it down gently. Satisfied, the theorhetical physicist let himself out of the bathroom, moving toward the door without another look at the monkey.

He stopped in the threshold of the apartment door. He forced himself to take steady breaths. _Don't think about it. Stop._ _You can leave without doing it._

He couldn't. Of course he couldn't.

He turned back and changed the oven clock. _Then_ he let himself out, still without looking at the monkey.

As he headed home, sitting in the back of a taxi that smelled slightly less smoky than Amy's apartment, Sheldon stayed silent, not even attempting to engage the driver in a game of Scientists. He was thinking, much like he always did, but in some ways so different.

He wasn't sure how to go forward. He'd known Amy nearly a year, and he'd accepted her into his life, with much less effort than his other friends had required. He wanted her to stay right where she was in his life. But _could_ she? Did them kissing cross some sort of line that didn't let you go back, like when one's sister pushed him too far in the revolving doors and one couldn't just turn around and go into the store, one had to go back outside.

Sheldon looked down at his hands. They couldn't undo this. It would always have happened. But they were extremely intelligent beings. They could beat this. They could. They could just rewind, go back to before things got this way, and proceed forward, taping over what they were uncomfortable with.

By the time he got home, Sheldon knew exactly what he would say to Amy the next day when she asked him how he suggested they proceed, rehearsed in his head to the point of perfection. And it was _good_, too.

**Reviews – good ones – are, as always, welcome and appreciated!**


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